WOUND CARE | Amy Fleury

Down the hall she trundles her trolley

stocked with unguents and rolls of gauze.

The wound care nurse approaches each

bedside, nearly silent in sensible shoes,

to check with a gloved finger the tightness

of trach ties, to inspect skin for breakdown

and pressure sores, to follow the progress

of granulation tissue or how a wound

opalesces to a candle wax sheen as it heals.

She greets me as she reaches my son’s crib,

asks to accompany me in performing 

his cares, to teach me what to watch for

and guide me in my practice. My boy tugs

intently his octopus’s dangling tentacles 

while we take down his belly dressing.

She tells me the omphalocele’s eschar

is epithelializing well as I use saline wipes

to cleanse its cindery surface. Her gray curls

bob as she nods over the crib, watching me

load the applicator with creamy Silvadene.

She catches his hands while I spread it over

his rotund tummy, singing pat-a-cake, and swirl

it like frosting. She rolls his tiny hands along

with the song, and when I croon, Mark it with a G!

he grins gummily and we laugh as I layer on

the dressing pad and secure it with paper tape.

Then together we inspect his stomas,

both G-tube and trach, and the state

of his central line, to ensure that all

his body’s many portals are safe

from infection. After we shuck our gloves, 

she gives his foot a squeeze. I thank her

and she’s off to see to other wounds.  

It is a gift to be witnessed, without pity, 

just my baby and me, giving tender

attention to the slow work of healing. 

Amy Fleury is the author of two poetry collections, Beautiful Trouble and Sympathetic Magic, both from the Crab Orchard Series of Southern Illinois University Press, and a chapbook, Reliquaries of the Lesser Saints. Recent poems have appeared in JAMA, AJN, Kenyon Review, the Penn Review and Image. She lives and teaches in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

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